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Sam Gibbons Remembered; Ion Sancho on Voter Suppression

Good morning, welcome to Radioactivity. Iâm Rob Lorei. Coming up today weâll hear an interview with the late Congressman Sam gibbonsâ¦.he died last week while we were in our pledge driveâ¦ weâll also hear a brand new talk by one of the leading experts on Floridaâs elections- Ion Sanchoâthe supervisor of elections in Leon Countyâ¦. And weâll hear about an upcoming choice rally in St. Petersburg--- but first thanks to you if you donated during our Spring fundraising drive. We raised $240,000 dollars in pledgesâ¦.Thatâs a bit short of what we needed- which was $260,000. So what it means is that we have the money to get us through the middle of next January. If you want WMNF to last longer than that I hope youâll make a donation right now online by going to wmnf.orgâ¦.

Former Congressman Sam Gibbons, a World War II hero who championed the creation of the University of South Florida, Head Start, world trade, and Medicare care died this past week at the age of 92.

He took part in the Normandy invasion in 1944 parachuting into France. Gibbons returned home, earned a law degree and was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1952, later to the Florida Senate in 1958 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962. He retired from Congress in 1996. He was rare- a moderate Liberal from the South. That made Through five decades, Mr. Gibbons never lost an election.

Later we'll hear a talk by Ion Sancho the Leon County Supervisor of Elections on creating obstacles to voting. The talk was recorded by Matthew Cutler of the community radio station in Sarasota, WSLR-FM.